Open Thread October 5 2026

 Posted by at 6:12 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 052026
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. He was fighting a cold, but still, of course, glad to see me. I’ve been fighting lightheadedness for a week or two (only obe actual dizzy spell – and I was sitting down when it hit, so I just needed to hang on. I may or may not know what caused this, and am tring to backtrack on a change I made just before it started znd see whether that helps. Today is the first day of the Supreme Court’s annual season. The Brennan Center has a video up with various guests. Some interesting points were made.
It’s about 52 minutes long.

I seem to remember that in 1960 the air was full of terrified cries that a Catholic President would be an abomination because he (no one in 1960 ever considered “she”) would be loyal to the Pope, not to the Constitution. Weren’t most if not all of those cries from Republicans? Are there any Republicans left who have a grain of loyalty to the Constitution? Asking for a friend.

Sorry about the repetetive nature of some posts – but sometimes something needs to be looked at from more than one angle.

I’m not going to lie and say there were no suicides when the military had actual leadership. There are always going to be suicides in virtually every group. But large increases developing after a leadership change for the worse (far worse) tells its own story.

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Open Thread September 23 2026

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 232026
 

Yesterday, It was surprisingly cold … or at least I was. Of course staying up late at night and then sleeping late into the day may have something to do with that. But that’s just how my Circadian rhythm works – and has, really, as long as I can remember. Retirement was my first chance to really start paying the sleep debt which had built up for so long.

David Sirota – who is no fool – wrote this for The Lever. It got me thinking that – throughout history, we have had multiple situations where innovations theoretically intended to make work easier have threatened to eliminate the human race by making workers redundant. Yet here we are. But the predictions have never been 100% wrong. There have always been people who literally died as a result of the consequences of the innovations. And at least since the 19th century, someone has said that those deaths were merely evolution doing its job – and that we were simply becoming more fit as a race. I would invite those people to look at MAGA. I don’t expect to be around to see the full consequences of any AI apocalypse – not because I expect AI to kill me, but because I am 81. Nor do I expect there to be anyone who will be able to accurately predict, nor to prevent the casualties of the next time around. I do wish the human race the best of luck.

Please be sitting down and be sure there is nothing in your mouth when you read this. I will not be responsible for personal or property damage when you realize Fox is included on the right side of this action – voluntarily.

Jesse Wegman (with the Brennan Center) is mostly concerned with law and the courts, and this is o exception – it’s a fairly deep dive into (one aspect of) legal ethics – as they should be. It’s not brand new news, but a response to recent news. I might call it food for thought.

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Open Thread September 12 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 122026
 

Today is my CT scan. I’ll comment when I get back.

More about AI – and the non-artificial intellifences who own it and only care about making money from it.

A victory in Missouri which I hope can inspire all of us.

A central founding principle of the United States was- and is – “no taxation without representation.” The whole point of the way the census is structured is to assure that. Immigrants who are not (yet) citizens are not allowed to vot, but they must be counted. Rlse they may not be taxed. Clearly the canteloupe Caligula (along with most other Republicans) has no idea how much tax money is paid in to the federal government byresident aliens – including many who are here without permission. I dooubt they’d be in such a hurry to throw all they money out the window if they had a clue how much it amounts to.

Railroad

Cat

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Open Thread August 24 2026

 Posted by at 5:42 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 242026
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil, and we played cribbage. Besides being great to see each other, it was good to experience something more or less normal (even including the normal frigidity in the visiting room.) I have forgotten that, though I never found my original car key, Trinette did – in a place I would never have looked, and I try not to think of how it might hace gotten there, because that way lies madness. I’m just glad it has been found.

Yes I realize this is not new – certainly not to anyone here – but Robert Reich says things so well.

Black Star is correct that “nobody has noticed.” This is certainly the first I have heard of it, and I see some legacy media and more independent news outlets than any one person can possibly read. (This is also the first I have heard of Gary being predominantly black. I expext that would surprise Harold Hill if he were real and still alive. This is BS -not in the sense of fake, but in the sense of morally unacceptable.

Back in the seventies, I was a charter subscriber to Mother Jones magazune. It was always good reporting – eventually It got too good for me to deal with – even just on line. Dose of Democracy referred this artivle.

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Open Thread August 15 2026

 Posted by at 5:49 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 152026
 

Yesterday was a fairly quiet day – which I certainly needed. I son’t know that you’ll see that in today’s blog, though you might. The hair-on-fire stuff I couldn’t sqeeze in earlier, and the lighter stuff is newer.

From Colorado Public Radio. What was I just saying about Colorado and water? This image is probably not of the Arkansas River – but it looks like the water in the Ark usually looks, and it does show why they call it “whitewater” rafting. Now compare this to the photo in the article. That water ain’t white, and ain’t gonna be, without a whole lot of snow this coming winter. And yes, I am posting a lot about water in a very short window. Consider it a preview of what’s coming unless all world leaders get their heads on straight – or get replaced with leaders whose heads are already on straight.

This is going to be time consuming – over a half hour if you watch, and of course if you read the stranscript, that will depend on your reading speed. (for comparison, Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American, when she reads them on YouTube, are usually in the 12-16 minute range.) But the amount of time it took to put this information together to present was more like months. The presentation was put together to address the coming midterms, but there is information which anyone who uses AI for any reason should be aware of.

I’m pretty sure the “Duffel Blog” is the military version of The Onion. On the other hand – Kefsbreath is dumb enough for this to be true.

I’ve been wanting to post about this but waited until Joyce Vance put it in writing. I do want to share one thing that was in the videos but isn’t here. At the point when Block said “I’ve been told it should be coming (or forthcoming as soneone else quoted),” allegedly Judge Sullivan responded, “So is Christmas.” I remember that comeback being common in the fifties, but I still find it amusing.

2fer

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Open Thread August 14 2026

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 142026
 

Yesterday, the CPR newsletter headline must have been written by Captain Obvious. It read “Drought dries up rivers.” I’m not complaining – I’m well aware how quickly the obvious can get lost, especially when people have strong feelings. As I do about this. A sweet little mountain town whixh leans heavily on tourism is being destroyed. And it doesn’t stop there. The river in question formerly continued on and fed into the Huerfano River, which in turn (I think still, but less) feeds into the Arkansas River, which provides water for the eastern half of the state, where the agriculture is.

From Colorado Public Radio. Weld County is roughly in the northeast corner of Colorado. It is at least ruby red – possibly garnet red. The corporation involved in this venture has no permits – and doesn’t appear to give a f*ck. The parts of Colorado east of I25 don’t get wildfires like the western part, I think mostly because they are low on trees, but they are by no means immune to drought. I think I wrote about the time – which must be more that six years ago, when I had to drive across half the state to see Virgil, I saw a nominal river (more like a creek really) actually burn up before my eyes. Seeing a creek in flames is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And as far as I know, the creek died in the fire. I never saw water come back to it.None of Colorado’s rivers is as healthy as it was when I came tp the state in 1976, and I’m pretty sure they were already unhealthy then – because our history reports memorable floods before that year, and I know of none afterwards. The last thing Weld County – or any county in Colorado – needs is a data center.

Referred by VoteVets, specifically General Eaton. He sends a daily “Four Star” which includes 4 links to short summaries of news articles regarding the armed forcea. This one has Kegsbreath’s fingerprints all over it.

All I need to say about this article by Robert Reich is “AMEN!”

The cruelty really is the point.

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Open Thread August 13 2026

 Posted by at 5:59 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 132026
 

Yesterday, I was pretty well swamped by news. The one which stood out was the Mango Monster hiding in the catering cart, which happened what, a month ago and is just now coming out? Several were talking about that. I tried to find some less obvious news which was still important or at least noteworthy.

From Talking Points Memo. The word “overreach” doesn’t, I think, sound as scary as it can be when the overreacher is unscrupulous. And unscrupulous is what we have.

From the AP. I posted the well-wishing opportunity yesterday(ICYMI). JoJo from Jerz has her own take, which I’ll post on a slow day with a hanky alert.

Robert Reich. I’ve always thought that the Luddites had very solid points. Not that I would argue in favor of their tactics – but those tactics were the only ones available to them at the time

From Phil Williams of “Confront the Hate. So much is going on, I feel compelled to post 4 a day until (unless?) things settle down.

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Open Thread August 1 2026

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 012026
 

Yesterday, Malcolm described the Iran War situation as one of two things: either all combatants (and non-combatants, including some new ones) think the war is a game of Risk – or they think it is a Tom Clancy novel. I’m not familiar with either the game or the author’s works – but it doesn’t sound good. Also, he put out a second show, a special edition – mostly about a newly resuscitated 500-year-old territorial dispute between Spain and Morocco for part of the Sahara. NO ONE HAS INVADED SPAIN. Although the Evil Emperor clearly wants to take down the government of Spain.

This is long – and it’s going to be even longer, because it’s a series. It will be coming out on Fridays, which means you will be seeing it on Satirdays – unless you subscribe to Robert Reich‘s Substack yourself. Someof it may well bore you – because it is fundamental, and y’all are already up on foundations. But it’s still good to look at them from a different angle. I do take issue with his statement that economics are not separate from politics. He sees them as two sides of the coin. I see them as married – with no reason why they can’t divorce and marry something else.

From The Conversation. I know that I want the truth from news sources – whether that truth is excellent, horrifying, or anything in between. I’m inclined to think that may well have been influenced by the fact that my recreational reading, from age 8 up, was authors like Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, and Ellery Queen – adding in my teens Ngaio Marsh, Matjorie Allingham, Josephine Tey, and too many more to list here. But that might be just my imagination. I really so not understand people who either don’t care whether what they believe is true or not – or who will embrace anything as truth because they want it to be true. And it boggles my mind how many of them there are.

I finally got Drop Site News sending to my new email address. My bad, I should have done it sooner. This is quite a story. Apparently the Mango Monster has gotten a bee in his bonnet about a Russian spy station which used to exist, but was closed in the early oughts and pretty well demolished. The site now has a school. I am still trying to wrap my head around as to why Russians would call a spy station in a Spanish-speaking country “Lourdes”. Saint Bernadette might has thoughts about that. Anyway, after the Soviet one was demolished, a Chinese one went in to a completely different area. All this and more is at the link, including a couple of supplemental videos.

Atlanta Black Star weekly puts together a column called “The Narrative, which matches up news stories with a common theme – which may or may not be obvious

2fer

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